


Simple Pleasures

by mikeneko



Series: Domestic Variations [2]
Category: Diana Wynne Jones, Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Castle in the Air, DWJ, Gen, Howl's Moving Castle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-07
Updated: 2004-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeneko/pseuds/mikeneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes, on the rare occasions when he slows down long enough to have time to sit and think about it, he's overwhelmed by how lucky he was."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Pleasures

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** _Castle in the Air_ (1990), sequel to _Howl's Moving Castle,_ was written by Diana Wynne Jones.  
> **Note:** Written for Trismigestus's LJ meme. The first line is hers. (She's very inspiring.)

Sometimes, on the rare occasions when he slows down long enough to have time to sit and think about it, he's overwhelmed by how lucky he was. For Dalzel's two ravishing, rotund rewards have never failed to find him pleasant new diversions.

In just this fashion, he now looks up from his book to see them both standing before him, shimmering seductively in their clinging clouds of pink and yellow gauze, both wringing their plumb hands in a most delightful distress.

As he sets his reading aside, he stretches and yawns, flexing his golden wings, unfolding his claws, revealing to them his not inconsiderable fangs.

He preens as both sigh in appreciation.

But a bridegroom's duty calls. "Tell me, o stolen treasures of Zanzib," he says sternly, "what it is that troubles your thoughts?"

"O most fearsome of fiends, Dalzel," wails his bride in pink, "most vile among villains."

"O most dreadful of djinns, Dalzel," shrieks his bride in yellow, "most debauched among devils."

"O unparalleled purloined pulchritude, reveal to me the source of this woe that besets you," he says, fascinated eyes fixed upon the mobile mounds of flesh so intriguingly displayed with their every wild gesture.

"An evil affliction is upon us," sobs his bride in pink, "a clamour and a clashing!"

"For indeed, the fluctuations of the flow do imperil our purity!" weeps his bride in yellow.

"Er. You don't mean me, do you?" he inquires.

"The drains, O terror in the night," says the pink, "they've stopped."

"The pipes, O perfidious one," says the yellow, "they're knocking rather."

He considers this problem, then nods. "You were right to come to me, my twin full moons of manorial maintenance."

As he tucks his flowing, golden locks into a hasty ponytail, he notes with satisfaction that both his well-fed gazelles are agape. As he hooks up his tool belt in his talons and hefts it over his shoulder, taking care to avoid his glittering wings, he is pleased to hear both gasp.

"Oh my. Pale and thin yet rippling," sighs the pink, "so _manly._"

"Oh, and the tools," agrees the yellow, "handymen are dead sexy."

Dalzel basks in the glow of their admiration for a few moments, then prods both with his toilet plunger. As his pastel prizes thunder down the marble corridors in a shrill, giggling flurry of veils, he remembers to tug down his trousers a little farther on the back of his hips.

Truly, he thinks, observing the jiggling overabundance before him, no djinn's deserted isle of exile could be as blessed as his own.

* * *


End file.
